My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

us, Peggy, Tom and I, sitting at a table in the stateroom drinking champagne. It was in the evening and a champagne bottle was in close proximity to Peggy. As the night wore on, I could see Peggy’s interest veering from me over to Tom Ince, and she began to grow a little ugly, reminding me that what she had done to her husband with a champagne bottle she might do to me.

Although I had drunk a little champagne, I was sober, and told her gently that if I saw the slightest suspicion of such a notion cross her pretty brow, I would toss her overboard. After that I was dropped from her coterie, and Irving Thalberg of M.G.M. became the next focal point of her affection. For a while, her notoriety dazzled Irving, for he was very young. At the M.G.M. studios there were alarming rumours of marriage, but the fever left him and nothing came of it.

During our bizarre, though brief, relationship, Peggy told me several anecdotes about her association with a well-known French publisher. These inspired me to write the story A Woman of Paris for Edna Purviance to star in. I had no intention of appearing in the film but I directed it.

Some critics declared that psychology could not be expressed on the silent screen, that obvious action, such as heroes bending ladies over tree-trunks and breathing fervently down into their tonsils, or chair-swinging, knock-out rough stuff, was its only means of expression. A Woman of Paris was a challenge. I intended to convey psychology by subtle action. For example, Edna plays a demi-mondaine, Edna’s girl-friend enters and shows her a society magazine which announces the marriage of Edna’s lover. Edna nonchalantly takes the magazine, looks at it, then quickly casts it aside, acting with indifference, and lights a cigarette. But the audience can see that she has been shocked. After smilingly bidding her friend adieu at the door, she quickly goes back to the magazine and reads it with dramatic intensity. The film was full of subtle suggestion. In a scene in Edna’s bedroom, a maid opens a chest of drawers and a man’s collar accidentally falls to the floor, which reveals her relationship with the leading man (played by Adolphe Menjou).

The film was a great success with discriminating audiences. It was the first of the silent pictures to articulate irony and psychology. Other films of the same nature followed, including Ernst Lubitsch’s The Marriage Circle, with Menjou playing almost the same character again.

Adolphe Menjou became a star overnight, but Edna did not quite make the grade. Nevertheless, she got an offer of $10,000 for five weeks’ work to make a film in Italy, and asked my advice about accepting it. Of course, I was enthusiastic; but Edna was reluctant to sever her ties completely. So I suggested that she should take the offer, and, if it did not work out, she could return and continue with me and still be $10,000 to the good. Edna made the picture, but it was not a success, and so she returned to the company.

*

Before I completed A Woman of Paris, Pola Negri made her American début in true Hollywood fashion. The Paramount publicity department went beyond even its usual asinine excesses. In a mélange of cooked-up jealousies and quarrels, Gloria Swanson and Pola were publicized and glamorized. Headlines announced: ‘Negri demands Swanson’s dressing-room.’ ‘Gloria Swanson refuses to meet Pola Negri.’ ‘Negri accedes to Swanson’s request for a social visit.’ And so the Press went on, ad nauseam.

Neither Gloria nor Pola was to blame for those invented stories. In fact, they were very good friends from the start. But the twisted feline angle was manna to the publicity department. Parties and receptions were given in Pola’s honour. During this cooked-up festival I met Pola at a symphony concert at the Hollywood Bowl. She was seated next to my box with her suite of publicity men and Paramount executives.

‘Chaarlee! Why haven’t I heard from you? You never called me up. Don’t you realize I have come all the way from Germany to see you?’

I was flattered, even though I could hardly believe her last remark, for I had seen her only once in Berlin for twenty minutes.

‘You are very cruel, Chaarlee, not to have telephoned. I have been waiting so long to hear from you. Where is it you work? Give me your number and I will call you,’ she said.

I was sceptical about all this ardour, but attention from the beautiful Pola had its effect on me. A few days later, I was invited to a party she gave at her rented house in Beverly Hills. It was a magnificent affair even by Hollywood standards, and in spite of the presence of other male stars she concentrated most of her attention on me. Sincere or not, I enjoyed it. This was the beginning of our exotic relationship. For several weeks we were seen together in public, and, of course, this was aphrodisiac to the columnists. Very soon there were headlines: ‘Pola engaged to Charlie.’ This was most upsetting to Pola, and she said that I should make a statement of some kind.

‘That should come from the lady,’ I answered.

‘What should I tell them?’

I shrugged non-committally.

The following day I received a message to say that Miss Negri could not see me, giving no explanation. But the same evening her maid frantically telephoned to say that her mistress was very ill and would I come at once? When I arrived, I was ushered by a tearful maid into the drawing-room, and found Mistress Pola supine upon a settee, her eyes closed. When she opened them, she moaned: ‘You are cruel!’ And I found myself in the role of a Casanova.

A day or so later, Charlie Hyton, manager of the Paramount studios, telephoned. ‘You are causing us a lot of trouble, Charlie. I’d like to talk to you about it.’

‘By all means. Come on up to the house,’ I said.

So up